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Copyright © 2010 Andrea Langworthy
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Paging through a back-to-school insert in a recent newspaper, I noticed school uniforms between pages of blue jeans and trendy shirts. They looked nothing like the uniforms I was required to wear to Catholic school in the 1950s and ’60s. Instead, this ad pictured an array of pants — tan and navy blue— along with a choice of polo shirts in yellow, white, or light blue. How I would have liked those options instead of the navy blue serge jumper and white Peter Pan collared blouse of my youth. You never would have found our outfits in a department store, either. Instead, my mother marched my sister and me into the offices of the uniform supply company in downtown St. Paul where we were measured and fitted. When the big brown box arrived at our home weeks later, we had to try on the clothes to make sure they fit before Mom pressed each piece and lined them up in the closet. Those weren’t the only uniforms I wore. The navy blue jumpers of my grade school years were followed by the turquoise and brown plaid wool skirts and taupe blazer of one high school and the dark blue wool skirts and blazers of another.
By the time I had a career, I’d had enough of looking like everyone else and unlike my friends who became stewardesses and nurses, never took a job that required a color-coded uniform. But when I retired from the car business, I took a page from the stay-at-home book of a woman who had lived across the street in the 1990s. While I had been deciding which power suit to wear to the office every morning, she, a homemaker with three young children, didn’t vary her wardrobe. In the summer, it was tan shorts, tennis shoes, and a white tee shirt. I didn’t understand it until I began working at home. Coming up with a subject for my column every week or deciding how to dress a character in a short story, taxes my mind enough. The last thing I want to do is make wardrobe choices every day. So, I bought some white tee shirts, a few sweaters from Target, and those drawstring pants the kids wear to school; all in light colors that can be plunked into the washing machine in one load.
So please don’t think I’m saying all uniforms are bad. I like my new every-day duds. And as a kid, I was proud to wear my Brownie Scout uniform every week. The best part of that light brown shirtwaist-type dress and beanie was wearing it to school on the days of our meetings instead of that jumper. The same was true of the white blouse, green skirt, beret, and sash of badges that made up my Girl Scout uniform. I wish I could say the same about the one-piece red rompers the nuns made us wear for high school gym class. Ugly as they were, though, they weren’t the worst part of phy ed. You know what I’m talking about: undressing in front of classmates in the not-so-private locker room was the worst. But that will have to be the subject of another column.